All this delightsome countryside is Hogg-land too, let us remember, as well as Scott-land. For here, in ballad-haunted Yarrow, the immortal James spent the best years of his life, failing so tantalizingly as farmer, but as poet, "King of the Mountain and Fairy school," dreaming so well of that most bewitching of all his conceptions--"Bonnie Kilmeny." Yonder, overlooking Tibbie Shiel's "cosy beild"--a howff of the Noctes coterie--stands the solitary white figure of the beloved Shepherd as Christopher North's prophetic soul felt that it must be some day. Hogg was born in the neighbouring Ettrick valley--in 1770 presumably. His birth-cottage is extinct now, but a handsome memorial marks the spot. Most of his life, as has been said, was passed in the sister vale, first at Blackhouse, then at Mount Benger, and at Altrive (now Eldinhope), where he died three years after his truest of friends--Sir Walter. The Ettrick homeland guards his dust. Close by is the resting-place of Thomas Boston, that earlier "Ettrick Shepherd" whose "Fourfold State" and "Crook in the Lot" are not yet forgotten. In the sequestered Yarrow churchyard sleeps Scott's maternal great-grandfather, John Rutherford, who was minister of the parish from 1691 to 1710. Scott spoke of Yarrow as the "shrine of his ancestors," and himself, like Hogg, and Willie Laidlaw, frequently worshipped within its old grey walls. Further down the stream, the "shattered front of Newark's towers" reminds us that here Scott placed the recital of the "Lay." He would fain have fitted up the ancient fabric as a residence, had it been possible. Almost opposite, the birthplace of Mungo Park, the first of the knight-errantry of Africa, attracts attention, and a mile or two nearer Selkirk, are Philiphaugh, and "sweet Bowhill," the two finest domains in the Forest. The Covenanters' Monument within Philiphaugh grounds is worthy of notice, and on the Ettrick side, Kirkhope and Oakwood, both in fairly good repair, are excellent specimens of the peel period. At Selkirk, the capital of Ettrickdale, Scott's statue as "the Shirra"--a most admirable representation--looks out at scenes upon which his eyes in life must often have feasted. Here we read the lines that express his heart's deep love for a district interwoven so closely with all the years of his working life: "By Yarrow's streams still let me stray, Though none should guide my feeble way; Still feel the breeze down Ettrick break, Although it chill my wither'd cheek." PLATE 23 VIEW OF NEW ABBEY AND CRIFFEL FROM A WATER-COLOUR SKETCH PAINTED BY JAMES ORROCK, R.I. [Illustration] VI. THE LEADER VALLEY. To the present writer, the valley of the Leader, or Lauderdale, has attractions and memories that are second to none in the Border. "Here, first,"--to use Hogg's lines-- "He saw the rising morn, Here, first, his infant mind unfurled To ween the spot where he was born The very centre of the world."